Stan Van Gundy Blasts Orlando Magic CEO Alex Martins

Stan Van Gundy, who endured an ugly public fallout with his former team, lambasted Orlando Magic CEO Alex Martins on an Orlando Sentinel radio show. Van Gundy was responding to Martins’ intimation that Van Gundy could not relate to players. Stan fired back, saying Martins has no knowledge, or clue, as to what he’s talking about. “’It’s a typical lack of understanding from someone who has no sports knowledge, who has never coached or played, who has never been in a lockeroom….it’s a naivete,’ Van Gundy said of Martins Monday morning on Mike Bianchi’s show on AM 740. ‘I’ll stand on the relationships with players based on the results we got. I think Alex’s comments are based on the fact that Dwight and maybe others didn’t like me…and thinking somehow that’s important.’ Van Gundy believes that the NBA is a bottom-line business and sometimes friction naturally occurs between coaches and players. He says what should matter most are results. Martins declined to comment Monday on the remarks made by Van Gundy, who has been outspoken recently about the Magic’s tumultuous season surrounding Dwight Howard’s trade demand. Van Gundy said the ‘culture and values’ instilled under former GM Otis Smith and former CEO Bob Vander Weide changed after Vander Weide retired and Martins was promoted to CEO. ‘When Bob left, it really became Alex over everything. I’ll take my share of the blame and management needs to take theirs,’ he said. ‘The Dwight thing was so big….in an effort, I guess, to make Dwight happy and everything else, we compromised a lot of the culture and values we had before that. It’s always a mistake when you compromise those things…everything goes South. It was no longer a team-first thing. It was inevitable things would not go as well.'”